Cleveland's Glenn Research Center should weather NASA overhaul, but questions about its role remain

NASAWork on NASA's Constellation Program, which was cancelled Monday, has provided an average of $93 million per year for the Glenn Research Center's budgetThe Glenn Research Center's decades of experience in basic areas such as aeronautics and spacecraft propulsion should help the Cleveland facility and its more than 3,400 workers and contractors weather the massive overhaul of NASA announced Monday.

But lots of questions remain about what the center's specific roles will be – and where the nation's human space exploration program is headed -- after the White House confirmed its intent to cancel NASA's plan for missions to the moon and Mars.

"I just think they are so well-suited for this forward-going program," NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver said of the Glenn center during a briefing outlining the space agency's $19 billion 2011 budget and its new direction.

President Barack Obama intends for NASA to be more of a research and development organization, pushing advanced technologies to improve access to space and life on Earth, with much less emphasis on building big rockets. His budget provides an overview, but few details, of how the transition will work.

Gone is the Constellation Program, a 6-year-old, multi-billion-dollar effort initiated by President George W. Bush to build new rockets and spacecraft for NASA's planned 2020 return to the moon, and for eventual Mars missions.

Obama scrapped Constellation, which his team of new NASA administrators and science advisors derided as a budget-busting program relying on out-of-date technology and a been-there-done-that destination.

The decision comes after NASA has spent $9 billion, including $450 million for the test flight last October of the first of its new rockets, which carried an upper stage mockup designed and built at Glenn. It leaves the nation without an explicit target beyond low-Earth orbit.

View full sizeNASANASA deputy administrator Lori Garver"This isn't a step backward," said Garver. "I think the step backward was trying to recreate the moon landings of 40 years ago, largely using some of yesterday's technology instead of game-changing technologies that can take us further, faster and more affordably into space."

Jim Kohlenberger, chief of staff of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, was more blunt.

"I think the fact we've poured $9 billion into an unexecutable program isn't an excuse to pour in another $50 billion and still not have an executable program," he said. "That's what I would tell taxpayers. The rocket to get back to the moon wouldn't be available until at least late 2028 or 2030. And even then there was insufficient funds to develop the lunar lander or the surface systems until well into the 2030s, if ever."

Instead, the new NASA will provide money to help commercial firms develop future rockets, and will buy rides on them to ferry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, which will remain in orbit until at least 2020. The commercial flights could begin as early as 2016, Garver said. NASA's space shuttle fleet will be retired in 2010 or 2011, leaving the United States dependent on Russian rockets for several years to re-supply the space station.

"The problem with the cuts in Constellation is that it leaves it very unclear what NASA's human space flight program is going to be doing," said Scott Pace, director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute and a former NASA associate administrator. "They're taking some new risks with commercialization, which may be good, but they're placing that bet without a backup plan."

NASA will spend more on science missions, including asteroid detection, a close pass through the Sun's fiery atmosphere, a successor for the Hubble Space Telescope, and satellites to study the effects of climate change.

Obama's budget gives NASA $13.9 billion during the next five years for new technology development intended to pave the way for eventual manned missions to deep space, though there is no timetable or objective for such flights. The money will pay for robotic scouting probes; early design work on a "heavy-lift" rocket and the fuels it might burn; and systems that would allow spacecraft to refuel from an orbiting fuel depot.

NASA officials hedged on possible destinations and schedules, saying whatever timetable emerges will be quicker than Constellation. Future human exploration programs will be partnerships with other space-faring nations. "The next time we go to the moon, we'll be doing it together" with NASA's international partners, Garver said.

The NASA budget, which scores a slight increase when other federal agencies are enduring flat funding or cuts, also proposes a $73 million boost in spending on aeronautics research from 2010. The money is intended for "green aviation" projects such as quieter, more fuel-efficient jet engines.

Glenn engineers have done pioneering work in that area, as well as in space propulsion, including developing an ion engine that could be used to drive spacecraft on long-duration, deep space missions.

"The ion engine undoubtedly will be something that is utilized on these robotic precursor missions," Garver said.

View full sizeMarvin Fong / The Plain DealerThis 12-story-tall vacuum chamber at NASA's Plum Brook testing station in Sandusky is one of the facilities where Constellation spacecraft were to be tested in conditions that simulate those found in space.Glenn's Plum Brook spacecraft testing facility in Sandusky, which has undergone millions of dollars of upgrades in anticipation of testing Constellation spacecraft, could be used to test other spacecraft, Garver said.

The Glenn center had fought for a major role in Constellation. Its assignments to oversee the development of key components such as the crew capsule's service module and engines on the lunar lander helped stabilize the center and heightened its profile within the space agency, putting it on a more equal footing with other NASA centers. The work pumped an average of $93 million a year into the center's coffers.

NASA's plans for boosting aeronautics and space exploration work bode well for Glenn, though it's not clear how the center will be affected by the shift to commercialized rocket-building, said Carol Caruso, vice president of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the area's chamber of commerce. Glenn officials are expected to discuss the impact of NASA's new budget Tuesday, though the center won't know how much money it will receive for several months.

"We're in a good position no matter what happens, at least in the short term," Caruso said. "If we do move toward commercialization, how does that work, and will our Ohio contractors be positioned to take advantage of that? We just don't have enough information. Also, I have some concerns about Plum Brook."

Pace, the former NASA official, praised Glenn's Constellation work and said the center will benefit from increased aviation and space technology spending. But aeronautics will always be a small portion of NASA's overall budget, he said. "If Glenn is not on the human space flight bus, it's going to be a minority player," Pace said.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, whose district includes the Glenn center, said NASA administrator Charles Bolden assured him and other members of Ohio's congressional delegation that the center will fare well. "He made it very clear Glenn has a strong position in the future of the space program," Kucinich said in an interview. "But that doesn't mean we won't work hard to make sure Glenn's expertise is fully utilized."

Ohio Sen. George Voinovich said he was frustrated by the lack of details in Obama's plan for NASA. "I am not satisfied that what the president is proposing is better than simply going forward with the Constellation Program," Voinovich said in a statement. "But the introduction of the president's budget is only the beginning of what will be a very lengthy budget process."

Obama's NASA budget is an acknowledgment that there isn't enough money to extend the life of the International Space Station, pay for a vigorous space science program, and build a new generation of rockets for human space exploration on a fast timetable, all at the same time.

"The situation we were in was unsustainable," said Princeton University astrophysical sciences professor Christopher Chyba, who was on an advisory panel that evaluated NASA's human space exploration program for the White House last fall. "I'm a space enthusiast. I'd like to see us on a fast track. [But] I think this is about the best we can do. If we're not going to make a gigantic investment, this approach makes a lot of sense. You want a more balanced program. What was happening under Constellation was . . . the agency was getting cannibalized. It's very important for that to stop."

Constellation also made NASA's 10 sometimes competitive field centers relatively equal partners in the effort to return to the moon. While that may have helped individual centers, it may not have been the most efficient way to operate the agency, said MIT aeronautics and astronautics professor Edward Crawley, who also served on the White House advisory panel.

"The good news is there was very strong coordination among the centers, but the flip side was someone from every center was on every team," Crawley said. "That may not be the best way to engage."

Obama's realignment means a return to the days when individual centers maintained special areas of expertise that were tapped as needed – or not – depending on NASA's priorities.

How best to utilize Glenn and the other NASA centers "is in some sense the biggest issue the administrator struggles with," Crawley said. NASA boss Charles Bolden "is remarkably sensitive about organizations and people. He'll seek a way to craft a solution to provide the appropriate stability in the centers."

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